INSANITY Mowing Your Yard Just Might Be Racist, America; Yep, It Might Be Time to 'Decolonize Your Lawn'

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
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www.redstate.com /mike_miller/2020/09/18/mowing-your-yard-just-might-be-racist-america-yep-it-might-be-time-to-decolonize-your-lawn/

Mowing Your Yard Just Might Be Racist, America; Yep, It Might Be Time to 'Decolonize Your Lawn'
Mike Miller
5-7 minutes


Well, there it is. Everything else is racist. Why not your yard?

While we look at our yards as playgrounds for our kids, family picnics, and other frivolous activities, the time has come to ask ourselves a socially-conscious question: Is it time to decolonize our lawns? You know, given that we’re descendants of “racist colonists” and all.

As insane as this sounds — a lot of stuff sounds insane in 2020 — The Globe and Mail, Canada’s largest newspaper, recently ran a legit article titled Is It Time to Decolonize Your Lawn?

The article reads:
[T]he traditional lawn – manicured, verdant, under control – now finds itself at the confluence of two hot-button issues: climate change and Indigenous rights. Some environmentalists, First Nations leaders and even hobby gardeners are calling for a different approach to how we view and treat the ubiquitous urban green space.
It is, they argue, a lasting symbol of how settlers appropriated Indigenous land and culture. And the rigid Western ideal we have imposed continues to hurt the planet and, in turn, all of us. The lawn, some go as far to say, needs to be decolonized.
Again, there it is, right off the bat. Your yard is contributing to climate change — aka: “global warming” — and “racist,” because it sits on land “appropriated” — stolen — from indigenous peoples.


The article quotes John Douglas Belshaw, a Canadian history professor at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C., who asks: “What is a lawn but a statement of control over nature?”
“That’s a huge part of settler culture. You see that river there? We can dam that. We can organize that water, we can make that water work for us. It’s essentially the same mindset. I can reorganize this landscape, flatten it, plant lawn, find a non-indigenous species of plant, of grass, and completely extract anything that’s not homogenous, that doesn’t fit with this green pattern and control it … A backyard with a big lawn is like a classroom for colonialism and environmental hostility.”
“A backyard with a big lawn is like a classroom for colonialism and environmental hostility.” Who knew?
Belshaw launched into a history of lawns, identifying another culprit: evil rich people.
“Lawns were not a popular thing in North America until the late 19th century and they’d become popular in part because immigrants were bringing European traditions of some manicured lawn. Manicured lawns were very much associated with wealth.”
Jayce Chiblow, community engagement lead with Indigenous Climate Action and a member of the Garden River First Nation, agrees with Belshaw, but is even more whacked out. Chiblow not only opposes private property ownership but also believes plants are “our relatives.”
“Where the lawns come from is from the property ownership mentality, that we can own property.
“Our teaching is that [plants] are our relatives and that we belong to the land. It’s an entirely different concept.”
So how can right this horrific wrong?

How can we achieve botanical justice? In a word, weeds. According to Dan Kraus, a senior conservation biologist at the Nature Conservancy of Canada — who compares plants to people — that is.
“Arguably, in our urban areas, it [the lawn] is kind of the largest ecosystem. These unknown plants that you think are all weeds but when you actually get to know them, they have their own stories and are as wonderful as any other plants.”
And of course, you can’t get to know your weeds if you keep killing them with chemicals and chopping them up with your lawnmower, now, can you? Easy solution, according to Christopher J. Watson, a postdoctoral researcher from University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières.
“If you want to reduce the number of weeds, reduce the amount of white grubs, and increase the beneficial insects like pollinators, simply don’t mow your lawn as much.”
Louise Hénault-Ethier, science project manager at the David Suzuki Foundation, says lawns are a way for people to prove that they have their life and property under control and in order.

If we can instead start to view long grass and wildflowers as positive things to have in our yards, she says, then we will also begin to promote positive change for our ecosystems.

In the end — literally, as it relates the article — it’s all about “diversity.” Of course, it is. Quoting Kraus:
“It is a cultural thing. here is this interesting comparison, like valuing diversity versus sameness. I do wonder if maybe future generations are going to look back, just like 150 years ago, when Victorian ladies used to like to wear dead birds as hats, and […] say: Why, why did you do that?”
The obvious question begs to asked. Do #AllLawnsMatter?
 

Martinhouse

Deceased
That suit he's wearing and the office he's sitting in, and the view out his window, make a bigger statement about control over nature than a mowed lawn does.

If I could see him sitting naked in a forest, slapping mosquitoes, I might give his idea some thought.

Geez, does anyone else find it embarrassing to belong to the same race as people like this?
 

vessie

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I wonder if he's ever mowed a lawn?

I also wonder if he thinks the same thing when he see's a pic of Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, BC?


He would be quite the hypocrite should he ever visit there.

" Again, there it is, right off the bat. Your yard is contributing to climate change — aka: “global warming” — and “racist,” because it sits on land “appropriated” — stolen — from indigenous peoples. "

I'm 'Indigenous' and have an exceptional garden, front and back.

I can only assume from reading his droolings, that he is a guilty white bleeding heart liberal and he and his ilk have absolutely No Clue as to how Patronizing he is to those he feels to be beneath him, because that is what his statements are truly revealing about what his true thoughts are on a subconscious level.

Not all indigenous peoples of Canada and the US are dumb, druggied, poor rez dogs.

That's what the MSM want you to see.

Many are highly educated and may have more wealth than he's every made/had.

We don't need his help.

Liberals like him are the real problem. V
 
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Meemur

Voice on the Prairie / FJB!
I have no problems with replacing my lawn with some raised beds, native sedges, and prairie flowers, but the zoning nazis have other ideas. They still want traditional lawns, grass mowed weekly. Yes, a bunch of us are working to change that.
 

AlfaMan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
So this bozo thinks that a well kept yard is racist? I wonder what he thinks of all the landscape companies that employ all the blacks and mexicans and other "people of color" that maintain lawns all over the country? Is their work and the paychecks they receive to feed their families also racist?
 

fish hook

Deceased
What is a yard the idiot asks? It is a opportunity for the code enforcement nazis to try and justify their job.

My lord, these ivory tower types just aren’tgetting enough oxygen to their brains at such lofty heights.
Shouldn't take much oxygen,no more than he has
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
There’s a few neighbors who agree with him ...

LOL. You have a few of those, too, huh? The next house down the road from us has a lawn that only gets mowed twice a year. You'd almost get lost trying to get from a vehicle to their front door.
 
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PghPanther

Has No Life - Lives on TB
The article quotes John Douglas Belshaw, a Canadian history professor at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C., who asks: “What is a lawn but a statement of control over nature?”

hmm.......Nature tells us when we get old and our eye sight starts to go..............so in that case why are you wearing glass you fool........
 
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